Gaming Let's Play!

[Nony]

Yes, the Let's Play! Basically it's other people playing through a game for others' entertainment, either via screenshot or video (the latter being more common these days). For more detailed info, read up on it [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitle8zx0nomxzqc5?from=Main.LetsPlay][u]here[/u][/url].

So, who here watches LPs? Or do you just don't get why people would rather watch an LP than play the game themselves?

Me, I enjoy LPs. I've been watching them for a couple years now and I get a good source of entertainment out of it. It's more than just watching the person play the game, it's watching the person too (no, that doesn't sound creepy and stalker-like).
Currently, I'm watching [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/HCBailly]HCBailly's[/url] Chrono Cross and Terranigma LPs, as well as [url=http://www.youtube.com/user/NintendoCapriSun]NintendoCapriSun's[/url] LoZ: Twilight Princess LP. CC and TP have been reaching epic levels lately. :catgirl:

[Sangome]

[FONT="Microsoft Sans Serif"][SIZE="1"]The only LPers I really keep track of are ProtonJon and Loudman01...and even then, they post rather sporadically. ProtonJon's Kaizo Mario LPs are amazing, though I know he's rather tired of people sending him romhacks just so they can see him scream and swear up a storm.

Outside of them, though? Retsupurae. Oh my gosh, Retsupurae...the snarkers of bad LPs have lifted up many a dark mood for me. :catgirl: If I had to list all my favorites, though, this post would go on for...like, ever. XD Hehe.[/SIZE][/FONT]

[Desbreko]

[color=#4B0082]I've yet to see any LPs that were actually entertaining, not counting Retsupurae's riffing on the terribad ones. Most of the time, people suck at the game, they take way too long to do anything, and their commentary is annoying.

Instead, I watch speed runs (both real time and tool-assisted) for entertainment.[/color]

[The Spectacular Professor]

[FONT="Comic Sans MS"][URL="http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Pokemon%20Quartz/"][COLOR="Blue"][U]This is the greatest LP ever. Bar None.[/U][/COLOR][/URL]

I prefer the screenshot ones in general. The video ones tend to be done by amateurs with annoying voices. Text and emoticons allow you to get away with a lot more, plus you can narrate however you want, meaning you can have different genres of replays. I once read an Animal Crossing one that read like the diary of a prisoner of a false utopia. It was hilarious.[/FONT]

[Korey]

[FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"][SIZE="1"][COLOR="Navy"]I'd definintely be down for doing LP's either via screenshot or via videos, although I'll admit my ROM library is rather limited ( I have too many fighters and I doubt people want to see me play the computer).[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]

[Nony]

[quote name='Desbreko'][color=#4B0082]I've yet to see any LPs that were actually entertaining, not counting Retsupurae's riffing on the terribad ones. Most of the time, people suck at the game, they take way too long to do anything, and their commentary is annoying.[/color][/QUOTE]

Hmmm... you might like [url=http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Battletoads/][u]diabetus' Battletoads LP[/u][/url] then. He's good at the game and his commentary is funny. Just a suggestion though if you're willing to try it.

[quote name='Ace']Text and emoticons allow you to get away with a lot more, plus you can narrate however you want, meaning you can have different genres of replays. I once read an Animal Crossing one that read like the diary of a prisoner of a false utopia. It was hilarious.[/QUOTE]

Ah yes, [url=http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Animal%20Crossing/index.html][u]Chewbot's LP[/u][/url]. That was a really funny one, haha.
As far as screenshot LPs, RedChocobo's Pokemon ones are hilarious. I've read all three several times through. And I agree, giving people time to think about what they'll write is probably a good thing.

[Shinmaru]

lol bump

Haven't dabbled too much into this, myself, because it's such a time suck, but I did go through a couple of Let's Plays for games I am unlikely to ever play in my life. The first was for [url="http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Snatcher/"][b]Snatcher[/b][/url], a game Hideo Kojima worked on that took a lot of clear inspiration from [b]Blade Runner[/b]. Definitely a fun read, overall, and [b]Snatcher[/b]'s story is pretty good, as well, full of that amusing paranoia that is par for the course with these stories.

Also watched [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmQfUy5CBAc"][b]Xenogears[/b][/url] out of curiosity, although this one was on mute a lot of the time . . . the guy's normal voice is all right, but his voice acting got on my nerves, and he didn't have much interesting to say otherwise. I mostly wanted to experience the story, anyway.

Just to go on a bit of a tangent, [b]Xenogears[/b] must have been simultaneously an awesome and supremely frustrating game to play at the time of release. The game's story is pretty damn good and must have been mind-blowing at the time of release; it actually pushes the envelope a lot further than [b]Final Fantasy VII[/b], to the point where there seems to have been questions at the time as to whether the game would actually see release in America due to the relatively maturity of its themes and content. But that complex story is the game's downfall, too, because I guess the game got its budget slashed partway through the project, so a good portion of the second disc is narration -- entire scenes that actually could have been played are narrated by the characters. It's ridiculous. And then there's the anime cut scenes (by Production I.G!) that look [i]really[/i] cool and have this awesome [b]Evangelion[/b]-esque feel to them . . . but the voice acting is kind of meh, and the actual dubbing itself is awful; it's like an old kung fu flick, where characters will keep right on talking even though there's nothing coming out of their mouths. Really shoddy work.

[Sangome]

[color="#9932CC"][font="Microsoft Sans Serif"]A rumor about [b]Xenogears[/b] that I've personally heard isn't that it ran out of funds, per se, but that those funds either got resourced to someone else, or cut entirely in favor of someone else...that "someone else" being [b]Final Fantasy VIII[/b].

Anyway, I need to get back into the LP-watchin' scene, myself, though I have been following ProtonJon's [b]Superman 64[/b] LP. Even though the guy got famous for screaming at Kaizo Mario World, his specialty really shines in how he explains [i]why[/i] a game fails in the technical and aesthetic terms, not just "omg this game sux coz i said so lol". He's also pretty funny while doing it, and he's got a nice voice to listen to, so I definitely recommend his work.

I also need to resume reading Zorak's [b]Pokemon Quartz[/b] screenshot LP. It's a romhack of [b]Pokemon Ruby[/b], with a really bad Spanish-to-English translation. The trainer and Pokemon sprites are entirely made by the ROMhacker, which in theory is pretty darn impressive, but the "Pokemon" themselves are...just...really ugly for words sometimes. The whole thing itself is just really surreal, but Zorak makes trudging through it a little less painful.[/font][/color] Edited October 8, 2010 by Sangome

[The Tentacle]

You guys have no idea how frustrating the second disk of [b]Xenogears[/b] was.  I played the game shortly after I finished [b]FFVII[/b] and I was hard pressed to choose which of these two RPG juggernauts was the best game.  But I ultimately chose FFVII simply because of the shoddy quality of Xenogears' second half.  

There were at least three or four action levels that only showed up as flashbacks and a few stand-alone boss battles to continue the story up until the final dungeon.  And you could tell that the levels were indeed cut out because one of said levels actually appeared on the overground map but was inaccessible. 

Watching a walkthrough after hearing rumors of this doesn't compare to the hair-pulling frustration a lot of us felt when we made the initial discovery.

EDIT:  And just to stay on topic I hit up ScottishDuck's LP series on Skies of Arcadia and our own Desbreko's vids for Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask whenever I need to refresh my memory.


Edited October 8, 2010 by The Tentacle

[Sangome]

[color="#9932CC"][font="Microsoft Sans Serif"]Been watching Chuggaaconroy's [b]Super Mario Sunshine[/b] LP the past few days, after replaying it myself myself recently. Great, great fun, although he can get kind of loud at times. [/font][/color]